The Bransons' Bet
by foojules
Summary: The Bransons travel to Downton for Matthew and Mary's wedding after making a rather unorthodox wager with each other. Writing around the scenes in S03E01, so S3 spoilers! There's some smut: what can I say, they are sexy people. (ETA: Thanks so much for your kind reviews! Keep them coming!)


Spring 1920

The envelope came in the morning post, bearing a Downton village postmark and addressed in an unfamiliar hand to _Mr and Mrs T. Branson_. "You'd better open this one, love," Tom said, giving it to Sybil over the table. He gulped his tea hastily; he had to meet with his editor first thing and he'd been late too many times.

"Hm. Wonder who'd write from there without giving a return address." She slit the letter open and gasped in shock a second later.

He looked up, hoping no one had died. "What is it?" Wordlessly she handed him a money order for a hundred pounds. _Jesus._ "Who's it from?" He asked.

"I don't know. There's no letter with it." Sybil took it back and inspected both sides. She tapped it against her lips thoughtfully. "I wonder if Papa sent it. So we could go to the wedding."

Tom snorted. "So _you _could go to the wedding." He took a bite of toast.

"No, it's addressed to both of us. And it's more than enough for two fares." Sybil reflected. "Maybe Mary persuaded him."

Tom _hmpf_ed noncommittally. He'd been somewhat relieved to be able to cry poverty to excuse their not going to Yorkshire; it was better than letting Sybil know how deep his dread of facing her family went. _Bowing and scraping and seducing..._ But of course she did know, because she laid her hand over his and sought his eyes with her own. "Please say you'll come with me," she appealed softly.

He couldn't look away, and he couldn't refuse her pleading eyes: grey today, like the still-gloomy early spring sky outside. But that didn't mean he'd capitulate completely. "I won't act differently to satisfy them," he warned her. "You know they aren't going to like that."

Sybil's smile said she knew she'd won. "I'd never expect you to. Don't worry, darling, we'll let them know how things are with us. I'll write before I leave this morning and tell them we're coming." She beamed and squeezed his hand. "You don't know how happy this makes me."

Tom was afraid her disappointment would be bitter when things didn't go the way she hoped. And they almost certainly wouldn't, he thought, not with her looking so rapturous. But he wouldn't be the one to put a cloud over her garden party; instead he said, "I'm glad. But you'll never convince me it was your father sent that money."

She grinned. "I'll bet you it was."

"Indeed. And what will your stake be, my love?"

She thought a moment; a rather wicked smile and a blush arrived simultaneously on her face, and she leaned across the table to murmur into his ear.

His own smile widened, and took on a decidedly salacious cast. "I'll take that bet. But don't think I won't collect when you lose."

-xxx-

He was sorry to have been so curt in sending Alfred away. The new footman seemed a nice enough fellow, and certainly none of this was _his _fault. But after the treatment Tom had received above stairs and below, he wanted nothing more than to be alone to lick his wounds. And he could damn well hang up his own suit.

God, Sybil's face. He'd only seen her that angry once before: after the announcement, when her father had as much as called her a... well. The effect of her family's behavior on Sybil was what really infuriated him, though in the dining room he hadn't been able to suppress a wave of schadenfreude. _You see, love? You see how well this is working,_ he'd thought furiously, observing her burning cheeks and downcast eyes across the table. When the ladies went through he pleaded a headache, doubtless brought on by exhaustion from travel, and paid a brief visit below stairs to get another strip ripped off him. If anything, that stung even more. Snobbery from Lord Grantham and the old lady was to be expected, but he'd lived and worked with these people for years. At least Mrs Hughes had been kind.

Now Tom lay with hands behind his head, eyes pointed at the molded ceiling. _We shouldn't have come, _he thought. At home everything was so natural. Here, life was a dance whose steps he'd never be able to learn, even if he'd wanted to. Recollections of the evening kept hitting him, each bringing a little prick of humiliation. The blithe suggestion from Edith to just buy an extra wardrobe, as if tails were ten a penny. Carson having to be asked to lower the serving tray. And they'd been the ones to bring up Ireland. They'd _asked_ what he thought! Was he supposed to lie and say that he was perfectly satisfied with table scraps for his homeland? He was afraid the answer was yes.

Stewing over people's slights was no way to spend an evening, though. He rose and brought his pen and notebook out of his suitcase - might as well get some writing done. Work would calm and direct his thoughts. Drawing attention to the way aristocrats treated the poor in the general sense would be so much more productive than being indignant at these particular toffs. And the staff here were so bloody indoctrinated, they'd think someone was getting conceited if he asked for an extra afternoon off, let alone a pay rise or the hand of the lord's daughter. Tom just had to get through these few days, and then he and Sybil could get back to their real lives.

He decided he'd take a room in the village tomorrow - they certainly had the money, now. He wouldn't be surprised if that was what their mysterious benefactor had actually intended. Tom was no masochist, and a few more nights like this one could very well result in a permanent break between the Crawleys and him and Sybil. Better to remove himself from the situation. Sybil could bask in the glow of her family, attend her sister's wedding, and return home happy, if not completely satisfied.

-xxx-

"Don't disappoint me, Sybil, not now that we're here."

_I suppose I deserved that,_ she thought, though the rebuke still rankled. It had all seemed straightforward enough when they'd discussed it in Dublin and brought it up again on the train. Of _course_ they would not allow being at Downton to change the way they behaved. Why would they, when they'd moved away in order to renounce that way of life? Now that they were back, though, the waters were cloudier. For one thing, Sybil and Tom were two against six (seven, if you counted Isobel, which Sybil didn't) and they were all so _utterly _convinced that their worldview was the correct one. Suddenly it seemed rather easier to try to blend in a bit, just for peace's sake.

At least it did to Sybil; she'd momentarily forgotten how scrupulous Tom could be. _And how much I love him for it._ She gave him a kiss and nestled underneath his arm with a sigh.

"It's so strange being back," Sybil said after a moment. "This place... it hasn't changed a bit. Not one bit. But _I'm_ so different now." Her hand drifted to her belly, as it was wont to do these days.

Tom dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "I know it's not easy for you," he said quietly. "I know I'm putting you in a difficult position. And I'm sorry for that."

Sybil lifted her face to look at him. "You think they're all set against you, but they _are _trying," she said. "Just tonight, Mary was telling me they do value you." It was only a small stretch of the truth. "You just need to give them some time. Especially Papa - 'set in his ways' doesn't even begin to describe it." She laid her head back down.

"Speaking of your papa..." a smile crept into Tom's voice. "He seemed quite shocked to hear that someone had sent us money to travel with." Sybil suddenly remembered an earlier conversation at the breakfast table in Dublin.

She rolled her eyes and tried vainly to keep the corners of her mouth from turning up. She stayed silent, waiting him out, but finally she couldn't stand it anymore. "Oh, just out with it!" She exclaimed. "I can _hear _you gloating."

"I want to hear you say it."

"Fine. You were right. You win. And you will collect your reward soon enough."

"So you brought it then." His tone was light, but there was an eager note in his voice that sent a thrill through Sybil's midsection. _I believe he'd go for it this minute if I said the word._ Married woman or not, the thought made her blush to her toes.

"I'd be rather a poor sport if I hadn't, wouldn't I?" she teased. She reached up and kissed him again, a long slow one that would give him something to think about. Then she turned out the light.

-xxx-

The return to consciousness was slow and excruciating. Tom could feel his head pounding with each heartbeat; the soft pillow under his head might as well have been rock. His mouth felt furry and his throat cried for water, but he couldn't imagine performing the sequence of movements that would bring a glass to his lips. He couldn't even imagine opening his eyes. _Jesus, I haven't felt like this since the morning after my first pint._

Then the memory of the previous night - some of it, anyway - hit him like a train, and he felt about as shattered as if he _had _been on the tracks when the express came through. A jumbled impression of the previous evening in the dining room had come into his aching brain; his voice filling the space, impossibly loud, and the stricken faces of the others floating around him like balloons. Not all stricken, though: even through the haze of drink (God, how many had he had? He only remembered one or two) he'd noticed that Gray bastard looked pretty amused. Tom's disgust at how completely he'd lost control was a physical sensation, a sinking. He groaned loudly, and then again at the pain _that _exertion caused. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,_ he thought helplessly. _That's me finished. I'll never be welcome back and she'll never forgive me. _He closed his eyes. The curtains had been drawn, but even the filtered light hurt.

There was a rustle from the other side of the room. Sybil's weight came onto the bed beside him, her smooth hand touched his forehead. "Hello, sleepy," she greeted him. He slitted his eyes open far enough to squint pathetically at her, and she gave a low laugh. "Here, drink this." Water, cool and healing and heavenly, dribbled over his lips and chin and down his throat.

After a moment she set the glass aside. "So... sorry," he mumbled, rolling painfully to face her. "Love, I..." he had no words.

Sybil kissed his forehead. _She's being very understanding_, Tom thought. She'd sounded almost pleased a minute ago. _What...?_

"You don't remember," she said: a statement, not a question. He gave an abbreviated shake of his head and grimaced.

Sybil made a small sympathetic noise and continued. "Matthew's asked you to be his best man. You've accepted. You -"

"_What?_" He sat up to look straight at her, wincing again at the sudden stab of pain in his head. "You're not serious." He ran a hand over his face. "How am I not on a train right now?"

She raised an eyebrow, and her eyes actually twinkled. "So you do remember something."

"I _vaguely _remember making an ass of myself at dinner. Obviously that's not the whole of it."

"No. Larry drugged you - put something in your drink in the drawing room. He thought it'd be hilarious." An edge came into her voice as she spoke the last bit and her brow furrowed in anger. "Sir Anthony saw him do it, and told everyone so after you started acting strange. I was quite proud of them, really, the way they stood up for you."

Stood up for him? This was almost more of a shock than waking up half-dead after one cocktail. "They defended the barbaric ex-chauffeur, did they?" He shook his head skeptically and gulped more water.

"It was amazing," she answered. "Mary simply _ordered_ everyone to disregard the way you'd behaved - and you know nobody ever disobeys her - and then Matthew walked up and put his hand on your shoulder like he was claiming you, and told us all that he was asking you to stand up for him."

"How about your father? What did he have to say in my defense?" That came out just a bit sharper than he'd intended.

Sybil pressed her lips together. "He was… quite scandalized." She laid her hand on his arm. "You see, Tom, they are coming to accept you. They don't close ranks like that for anyone who's not family."

Tom had his doubts about that - pride could make people choose sides they wouldn't otherwise, and the Crawleys had that in spades - but he kept them to himself. He lay back down, pondering, as Sybil settled herself against him. "So I'm to be in Matthew and Mary's wedding," he mused, stroking her hair absently.

"Mm-hmm."

"And Larry Gray's not invited."

A chuckle from Sybil. "They'll throw him out if he gets within a half mile."

He wasn't sure how to feel about all this. He'd come to England expecting a fight, and it seemed as if he'd gotten one... but not from the quarter he'd expected. For Sybil's family to embrace him, however awkwardly, was deeply confusing. He wondered why, when he himself had been the one to assure Sybil that they'd come round.

"Good," he finally said. "But I'm not buying a bloody morning coat."

-xxx-

He had almost fallen off his chair when the old lady (the _Dowager Countess_, he mentally corrected himself - he supposed he should refer to her with more respect, even in his own mind) had revealed her role in bringing him and Sybil here. He hadn't thought anything that wily old hen said could surprise him, but here he was, surprised. The words _part of the family_ had actually come from her lips in reference to him. This was a reversal indeed.

That more than anything had motivated him to say what he had to Matthew. A stranger, or a _servant_, might stand by and let Matthew - as decent as he'd been - throw away his chance at happiness. But a brother would not. So Tom had seen Matthew to Mary's door, egging him on as if he were a lad asking a girl to dance instead of a grown man looking forward to his nuptials.

Tom made his way back to Sybil's room, mulling over his night's work. He remembered the terrific row he and Sybil'd had the day before their own wedding, due entirely to nerves, and thought things would probably shake out all right for Matthew and Mary. _Though I must be well indoctrinated to be trying so hard to make sure this wedding comes off. Now there's truly no getting out of wearing that monkey suit._

He entered Sybil's old room to find it empty and the bed unrumpled. He reflexively turned back to the hallway, thinking he might've gotten turned around somewhere and gone into the wrong room, but the distance from Mary's bedroom was not so very great. Anyway there was the suitcase at the foot of the bed, there was Sybil's dresser with the few photographs and mementos she'd left on top, frozen in time. But no Sybil.

She wouldn't be with Mary, which would have been his first guess. _Edith?_ That seemed unlikely, though not as implausible as a late-night visit to her parents' room. Then his eye fell on the note propped on the mantel. Other than the signature it only contained four words, which were enough to bring a rather licentious smirk to Tom's face. _Soon enough._

-xxx-

She'd forgotten about the changes in her figure. They'd been so gradual: first her breasts had swelled to a size that plainly delighted Tom (unlike the tenderness that made her yelp and reflexively push him away if he so much as got near her chest - thankfully, that had diminished sometime after Christmas). Then she'd started to thicken around the middle, putting on flesh until she began to look just a wee bit plump. Just in the last several weeks had her belly become rounded enough to be a harbinger of her condition.

Sybil took it in stride. She'd never planned on being one of those women who wore corsets all through pregnancy. For one thing, it was bad for the baby, and for another, she wanted to work as long as possible. She couldn't help being a bit glad, though, when her workmate Aileen had remarked on how Sybil wasn't gaining weight all over like Aileen's sister had with her babies. "Her face puffed up like she had dropsy," was how she put it.

And Tom had exceeded all her expectations. She'd predicted that he'd be solicitous; that much she remembered from her father's behavior during Mama's last, ill-fated pregnancy. She hadn't anticipated that he'd continue to make her feel so beautiful, or so desired. She'd always had the impression that pregnancy was an inherently sexless state - given its biological origins, she had no earthly idea why. But she'd assumed that her own passions would be dampened by the rigors of growing a human being inside her, and that Tom's would be by her altered shape. That turned out to be very much _not _the case, once the malaise of the first few months had lifted. If anything, they both kindled more easily now.

But her new shape was complicating matters at the moment. _It just won't fit,_ she thought in some consternation. She'd have to leave some buttons undone. _We'll work with what we have._

-xxx-

Anticipation and apprehension competed in his gut as he walked down the lawn; they felt much the same, except one flight of butterflies sank while the other rose. _I wonder if this is how Sybil always felt coming to visit me_, he mused. Granted, the consequences wouldn't be as severe if he were spotted now, but it would definitely be embarrassing. As he neared the garage, however, anticipation gained the upper hand.

Tom was thinking back, not for the first time, to a conversation they'd had the previous summer. Sybil was having a bath; they'd developed a ritual where she kept the bathroom door open and Tom sat in the hallway and read the paper and talked to her.

"Do you know," she said that day, "I'm starting to feel quite settled in."

"To Dublin, you mean?" Tom folded the page over. The international news had a bit about two more states ratifying the Anthony Amendment in America. He'd have to mention that in a minute - she'd be pleased to hear about women there being that much closer to getting the vote.

"Yes, that too. I was more thinking about you and me, though."

He smiled. "We are practically having a bath together. I'd say we're pretty comfortable with each other."

"Yes. It's nice, isn't it?"

"'Tis."

The bathwater sloshed. "Tom?"

"Mm?"

"Why do you think people can't stay like we are? I mean, why do you never see older couples who are still madly in love?"

He looked up from his paper. "There are some who are."

"But those seem like a minority. And even they're just doting on each other, really." She paused. "They aren't passionate anymore."

He thought of his and Sybil's honeymoon, when they'd hardly left the flat. "Are you worried already?" he asked, a little teasingly.

"No-ooo. But it is rather discouraging to think that the more you know about someone, the less you're in love with them. I'm sure those couples I see on the street carping at each other once thought they'd be madly in love forever too."

Tom had his doubts about how much in love some of those couples had been when they started out, but he simply said, "the more I know about you, the more I love you."

"Well, good. Just so you know, I feel the same." She was smiling. The water swished again. "But there's love, and there's being _in _love. I like being comfortable with you. But I don't want us to get _too _comfortable - does that make any sense?"

"It does." He got up and walked into the bathroom, perching on the edge of the tub to grin down at her. "You want me always to worship the ground you walk on, the way I do now."

Sybil snorted and leaned forward to splash him. He noted that she'd deftly covered herself at the same time. _Not _too _comfortable,_ he thought. He put out his hand to stop her splashing and she caught it in both of hers. "I want..." she looked down, as if trying to read the future in his palm. "I want us always to _long _for each other." _Ah, Sybil, you have no idea._ She continued. "I suppose it's human nature, though, to become tired of things you're used to."

Was that insecurity in her voice? Tom pressed her hands. "Maybe if you didn't like them much to begin with, or if you let yourself get stuck in a rut." He gently raised her chin so she'd look at him, and spoke seriously. "I think life gets in the way of loving, for a lot of people. They're trying to scrape by, and they're busy and they stop making an effort to keep seeking out new things in each other. I don't think that will happen with us."

Her mouth turned up in that wicked half-smile he found so enticing. "So what kinds of new things would you want to... seek out?" She asked him. Laughing, he took his turn to splash her. "No, really," she protested. "I - hey! - I really want to know!" He'd scooped her out of the tub, and was carrying her across the hall to deposit her on their bed.

"This is an excellent start," he replied, joining her there and kissing her firmly. No more was said for several minutes, until she'd brought Tom to a state of undress closer to hers.

"It always feels new with you," he murmured into her throat. He licked the spot where her neck met her shoulder, and she shivered. Sybil's baths didn't always end like this, but God, he loved it when they did.

She rolled over to lie on top of him. "For me too," she said huskily. She moved the length of her body against him, and he moaned. "I want to keep it that way."

"All right. I'll tell you one thing." He put his arms around her, caressing her backside. "Before you said yes to me, I used to think sometimes about us... being together in the garage." He actually felt a bit bashful, telling her his fantasy like this_._ "I guess I wouldn't mind seeing that garage again," he continued. "Though I suppose that's not very new."

"Oh, but it would be," Sybil said. "If it's anything like this." She obviously liked the idea.

"But I'll probably never be able to go back to Downton anyway."

"You never know."

They'd let the matter drop then, in favor of more immediate concerns, until Sybil had suggested it as the stake in their little wager.

And now it was actually going to happen. He'd told her that he _sometimes _dreamed about it, but in reality it had been far oftener than that. It had been difficult not to think about, with them meeting alone together there so much, and the garage _was _a convenient place for a rendezvous - in fantasy land, anyway.

The windows looked dark, but the door was unlocked. She'd lit a few candles inside, keeping them low to the ground, so the light was dim and flickering. It was chilly inside. He almost jumped out of his skin when Sybil put her arms around him from behind. He turned and met her parted lips with his own.

After their initial embrace, he pulled back to get a look at her. The old nurse's uniform didn't fit her now, of course, but he thought he liked it much better with the shirtwaist half undone. "I think you should've worn it like this more often," he teased. He played with the highest fastened button and managed to slip it free of its buttonhole.

"I'm sure the officers at the hospital would have quite appreciated that." Her dancing eyes flickered down toward his hand. She knew exactly what he was up to.

He considered. "Ah, you're right. On second thought, you were smart to keep yourself well covered up." He moved in to kiss between her breasts at the opening of her dress. She wasn't wearing anything underneath it, he noticed, the temperature of his blood seeming to rise several degrees.

"But at that time - " she'd begun working on his vest buttons - "it was really none of your business what I wore, or what anyone else thought about it - " the vest dropped to the floor - "was it?"

"I don't know about that." She was leading him over to the corner behind the Renault, where she'd spread blankets on the floor. "We were _practically _sweethearts."

"Sweethearts!' Sybil laughed. "If you can call someone your sweetheart, who woos you with diatribes about how your ancestors oppressed his! Sit down," she ordered.

"Yes, milady."

"I asked you never to call me that again."

"Apologies, milady, I don't know what got into me - ow!" She'd settled herself on his lap rather more roughly than she needed to. Straddling him with her skirts hitched up, she placed her palms on his chest and pushed him back into the blankets. _She _didn't know what had gotten into _her_; she was feeling quite wild.

She followed him down with hot, ardent kisses, and opened his shirt to run her hands over his bare chest; his hands were busy as well, undoing her remaining buttons to caress the swell of her growing belly. He took a nipple into his mouth and swept his tongue around it, making her cry out softly. "Oh, that feels good," she whispered.

He put his hand underneath her skirt and quickly brought her to a place where she wanted nothing more than for him to be inside her. They negotiated the remaining layers of clothing separating them, and almost as soon as they'd got started she thought _What if we were doing this here in the old days and someone were to come out and catch us like this_ and the illicit thrill of it sent her over the edge. Tom held on a moment longer, but he was caught up in it too and soon he threw his head back against the blankets, wrapping his arms around her shoulders to bring her closer, closer, closer. "Oh _God_, Sybil," he grunted into her hair.

For a while afterward they didn't move, lazy and satisfied as cats after a big meal. Finally Sybil shifted to lie with her head on Tom's chest, his arm curled around her.

"It's too bad you don't still have your chauffeur's uniform," she said playfully. "That could have been really fun."

Tom laughed. "I don't know if I could've stood any more fun." He flashed on a couple of choice moments from the last half-hour and suddenly wished it weren't quite so late.

"I hope you didn't have any trouble keeping up," Sybil said archly. "Because _I_ quite enjoyed myself."

"I noticed. You certainly didn't seem to mind losing our bet." He curled a bit of her hair around his finger.

"Well. I am a terribly good sport."

They drowsed for a time, until Sybil shivered in the increasing chill and pulled herself back from sleep. "We'd better go up," she said, sitting up and reaching for her coat. "It's very late, and you've got a big day tomorrow."

"And we wouldn't want my replacement to catch us out here in the morning." Tom buttoned his shirt and began to look for the bits of clothing he'd lost.

"That would be awkward, wouldn't it?"

A bit later they left the garage hand in hand, blankets under Tom's free arm. The moon and stars were out to light their way.

"Do you know what I feel like," Sybil said _sotto voce_ as they approached the house, "a bath."

Tom smiled. He was definitely going to be tired tomorrow.


End file.
